Product Spotlight: Marching in Red Square

“Order of the Supreme Command in Chief, Armed Forces of the USSR and concurrent People’s Commissar of State for National Defense: To mark the victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War, I order a parade of troops of the Army, Navy and the Moscow Garrison, the Victory Parade, on June 24, 1945, at Moscow’s Red Square. Marching on parade shall be the combined regiments of all the fronts, a People’s Commissariat of National Defense combined regiment, the Soviet Navy, military academies and schools, and troops of the Moscow Garrison and Military District. My deputy, Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov will be the parade inspector. Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky will command the Victory Parade itself. I entrust to Col. Pavel Artemyev, the preparations of the parade organization, due to his concurrent capacities as the Commanding General of the Moscow Military District and Commanding Officer in charge of the Moscow City Garrison.”

– Marshal of the Soviet Union, Joseph V. Stalin, Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Armed Forces of the USSR And concurrent People’s Commissar of National Defense of the USSR, Order #370, June 22, 1945

Ever since they were announced, we’ve been eagerly awaiting the latest Modelcollect diecast military vehicles, which includes, among other things, a pair of Russian BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles. The product shown here (AS72044) is a vehicle that took part in the annual Moscow Victory Day Parade held on May 9th, 1990, the final year before the Soviet Union dissolved into a Commonwealth of Independent States.

The Moscow Victory Parade of 1945 (Russian: Парад Победы, tr. Parad Pobedy) was a victory parade held by the Soviet army (with a small squad from the Polish army) after the defeat of Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War. This, the longest and largest military parade ever held on Red Square in the Soviet capital of Moscow, involved 40,000 Red Army soldiers and 1,850 military vehicles and other military hardware. The parade transpired just over two hours on a rainy June 24th, 1945, over a month after May 9, the day of Germany’s surrender to Soviet commanders.